If you’ve been waiting for this second movie in The Chronicles of Narnia series, you might be disappointed with Prince Caspian. Well, I suppose it depends on what you’re waiting for. If you’re looking forwards to lots of battles in a long movie, with no development of characters, then you’ll have a great time. If you’re looking for a visual feast, you’ll probably enjoy it too - the graphics are mostly as impressive as with the first movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the visuals are gorgeous.
But if you’re looking for a movie that adheres to the beloved classic Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, or any actual story and characters that you can care about, you’ll probably be highly disappointed. And because of all the battles and violence, if you’re taking your kids, you’ll probably think you’ve made a mistake. Even Aslan the lion and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch only appear onscreen for a tiny slice of time. Or if you’re going to see it because of the handsome, young Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian (at right), you might be surprised to find he’s not charismatic on screen at all.
Now I’ll admit I haven’t read the books, so I can’t compare them with the movies. For years, I looked for a full collection of the seven novels and could never find them all. Somewhere I have a tattered second-hand copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and was waiting to find the rest before reading. (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is actually considered book #1 by some people, but it’s #2 in the series.) What I do know, if I’m not mistaken, is that the second movie is actually based on the fourth book, thanks to some technical problems with the animation for the original second movie. However, that might be Internet misinformation.
In case you’re interested, here are the Narnia titles in order of appearance, as per the collected package shown at Harper Collins:
- The Magician’s Nephew.
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
- The Horse and His Boy.
- Prince Caspian.
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
- The Silver Chair.
- The Last Battle.
Given that 1300 years have passed between movies #1 and #2, I say we missed out on something - something called The Horse and His Boy, which doesn’t have much of a ring to it as far as being a movie title. (Maybe that’s why there’s no movie based on it?)
Can’t say I understand why this approach was taken, and why director Andrew Adamson ignored character development throughout 99% of Prince Caspian. I’m hoping he redeems himself with movie #3, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (book #5) - which comes out in 2010 - and gives us something as wonderful as movie #1, which he also directed.
When C.S. Lewis first wrote the series, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book. After he had finished the series he expressed a desire to move The Magician’s Nephew to the first book in the series (it is the story of the beginning of Narnia). It has only been in the last few years (and after his death) that publishers have started moving the books to the order that Lewis desired.
Prince Caspian (the second movie in the Narnia series) is taken from the book by the same name. The fourth book is the Silver Chair, so I’m not sure why there would be a confusion about this. The fourth book does involve another prince, but this one is held captive by an evil queen/witch.
There has never been a complete filming of all the Narnia books. I just hope the success of 1 and 2 will help spur on the production to the end. It will be amazing to see the Last Battle on the big screen.